


The Unreachable

by Il_matto



Category: Ensemble Stars! (Video Game)
Genre: Childhood Memories, I wrote it to lovemail Natsume shamelessly and to understand the mistery of Tsumugi's mindset, M/M, Recollection of events, Unvoiced Feelings, after all this time I still don't know how to tag stuff, my English is chaotic and I'm sorry, probably
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-25
Updated: 2019-11-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:00:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21558181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Il_matto/pseuds/Il_matto
Summary: To Tsumugi, it is so much easier to believe that one day he will get to grasp starlight with his fingers than to believe that he might be worthy of this radiance.
Relationships: Aoba Tsumugi/Sakasaki Natsume
Comments: 2
Kudos: 49





	The Unreachable

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Недосягаемое](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20820278) by [Il_matto](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Il_matto/pseuds/Il_matto). 



Tsumugi is not one of those people who are good with remembering their dreams. Echoes of his night visions, so gray and vague, leave him every morning at the moment he opens his eyes and remain on his crumpled pillow or flow away with soapy water as he absentmindedly washes his face. This fact upsets him just a little bit. They say that through a dream one can receive a good omen or a warning of a misfortune incoming. That’s why every time Tsumugi is promised to have a good day but none of his lucky items is able protect him from another series of troubles, he wonders if it’s his own fault as he haven’t noticed his fate’s bad intentions in his dreams the night before.

But there’s still that one dream even he is able not to forget in the morning. Because it’s never the first time he sees it, as it keeps coming back from time to time.

In this dream everyone’s eyes are drawn to the girl dancing in front of the mirrors of his family's studio. Tsumugi holds his breath every time he sees her plated in two braids candy red hair dancing through the air when she makes a whirl. He has been always loosing his balance at this chain of movements – there are still some scratches on his knee which are still healing (but he always get new ones on the same spot). But the girl’s brand new shoes just flit lightly above the studio’s slightly rotten floor. Her golden eyes catch the delight on her viewers faces, and that’s why Natsume’s smile grows widely, so cheerful and almost daring when she throws up her chin proudly. As if she is asking: can you repeat that after me?

Of course there’s no way Tsumugi can do it. Despite him knowing every lesson by heart, he has no skill enough to control his own clumsy body. His feet keep on messing with the steps and his arms get heavy after only a half of a minute. But at least what he can do for sure as to keep on watching with a desperate fascination after every movement of a fragile figure, whose dance is reflected in the dusty mirrors. What he can for sure is to clap his hands, tapping a rhythm quietly, not daring to break with a noise the magic happening in front of his eyes.

To him Natsume looks like a fairy who has just left the pages of his old fairy-tale book. To him Natsume shines brightly than all the dull lamps of the studio together (and when she smiles it gets even brighter as the room gets filled with the beams of sunlight). To him Natsume seems to be light like a feather as she dances for another minute and there’s not a sight of tiredness on her face. And when she snaps her fingers, Tsumugi does his best to repeat this simple gesture, but none of his hands manages to success in it. Maybe it just has not been given to him.

Maybe he will never be able to meet someone more talented and more beautiful than Natsume.

“That’s it,” says the girl as she gives a small bow to the wave of applause which has raised right at the moment the music died down. A few stands of her hair fall down and cover her eyes. Her hair looks as warm as the sky in the afterglow when it sends the sun to sleep. “May I take a seat now?”

“You really are amazing, Natsume-chan!”

Tsumugi hears someone’s voice – so loud and gasping with admiration – and barely recognises it as his own. And it does not feels like it’s his hand raises in the air, waving at the surprised girl. And it does not feels like he is the one she approaches, stepping ligtly and barely audible on the floor.

“Can you show me that pair of elements, please?” Tsumugi asks while Natsume looks at him sceptically with her eyebrows raised and her hands crossed on her chest. “Now matter how hard I try, I just can’t figure them out…”

“That’s rather strange, since you’ve been here so much longer than me,” the girl answers without the blink of an eye. Tsumugi lets out an awkward giggle to echo the ones burst around him. But he doesn’t stop from holding out with his hand to Natsume, who is so bright and as unreachable as a setting sun. And his heart pounds as he can’t believe his own boldness.

“Please, Natsume-chan?”

“Looks like it can’t be helped,” the girl lets out a deliberately heavy sigh, but Tsumugi still sees the warmth of the sunshine at the corners of her golden eyes. “Someone has to look after you or you’re going to break something, Tsumugi-niisan.”

And he still feels his heart beating so fast that his chest hurts even at the moment he awakes and his eyes see nothing but darkness of his stuffy room. Tsumugi blinks once or twice absentmindedly as if he refuses to believe, while his empty hand grasps nothing but the air. 

For Tsumugi, this dream is brighter than the events of past week, but its broken ending just can’t get out of his head. Because he can’t remember if he was burned by warmth of Natsume’s delicate hand. Because he can’t he can’t remember if he had a shiver on his skin because of how cold were Natsume’s graceful fingers.

That girl disappeared from his life as suddenly as she had came into it. Like a bright warm spark on a gray canvas of his childhood memories. If it was not for the records of her performances on the old CD, Tsumugi could easily convince himself that those three weeks were something he had imagined to himself. But it is always enough for him to check the boxes with things from no longer existing studio to get an evidence that Natsume was real.

Even if for him her existence will forever remain as just a shadow of bright memories and a breath-taking dance in a video record.

Sometimes keeping good things in your memory is more than enough.

***

The second year of high school seems to be a perfect time to finally accept that life will always have its own plans for you, and that, no matter how hard you’re going to struggle, its flow will inevitably carry you to a place where you for whatever reason are needed. And it’s not like you can change it one way or another. Maybe all that you can do making a choice: whether you are going to cry and dissolve in tears while the waters carry you to the edge of the abyss, or whether you are going to smile and look in the blue sky, counting clouds passing you by.

Tsumugi chooses to smile. Tsumugi has no idea when the “tremendously bad luck” his horoscope keeps promising him will come true and his miserable body will be put out of a sewer manhole or any other ridiculous last refuge his insignificant self might find. That’s why there always a smile on his face from one day to another even if he can’t remember if they have any difference between them. That’s why he suddenly gets quite a few random good acquaintances around his school and gathers a tonn of knowledges he might never get to use in his life.

That’s why he becomes a useful person for Tenshouin Eichi and his plans. And it’s enough to make his always smiling self happy that someone else gives a title for another period of his school life. That someone else writes a story which makes you believe in it. Tsumugi’s life has nothing more eventful than an unexpected twist in another book he puts on the shelf in the library (even those leave a dusty taste on his tongue). But the stage Eichi suggests him to stand on shines dazzlingly like a boiling sun, and he just can’t not to make a step to it. 

But there is something more that awaits him at the turn of the current he is so ready to obey with his heart and body. And Tsumugi has already became one of the characters in the first chapter of that tempting not-his-own story when he notices warm light of red hair at the opposite side of the chessboard.

When his live for some reason decides to remind him that Sakasaki Natsume exists not only in his dream-like memories.

And it really feels like another twist which turns the whole book’s storyline upside down. Because a vividly bright girl turns into a thin young man in a white lab coat. Because once sparkling glare of these golden eyes now reminds him one of a wary cat. Because once ringing voice has already broken and sounds as soft as velvet even when Natsume makes some really pointed observations. But the most embarrassing thing for Tsumugi in this situation is that his own voice turns out to sound slightly higher than one of this sceptical about nostalgic memories first-year. This seems REALLY embarrassing to him, isn’t he supposed to be a senpai for Natsume-

“Say “chan” one more time and you’ll get oxid right into your face”

Yes, that’s not how he imagined them meeting each other after so many years (when he ever dared to dream about their reunion). But Tsumugi can’t be really surprised with anything anymore so he just lets out a little laugh and accepts another decision of his fate. Even if it seems like there’s nothing left from that girl who danced in his parent’s studio and had all the admiring glances locked on her in this mysterious (and somewhat sulky) first-year, who managed to get for himself a whole secret room in the underground level of their high school. 

They only share the same name which goes with quite a rare surname, the same colour of hair and eyes, and some memories, which this Natsume remembers in such another way than Tsumugi does. But these common traits are still undeniable facts. And it’s so much easier for Tsumugi to believe to facts and statistics and number rather than his own feelings. So he accepts everything as rules in a game where every step of his figure is carefully thought out by someone else.

What he notices later is a thin red strand which rests so casually on Natsume’s shoulder. Such a small thing, yet it manages to tie up the past with the present so much better all the awkward words they shared while talking about what turned out to be nothing but some weeks at some dancing school with a bad management. That’s what Natsume says at least.

And that’s enough for them. It doesn’t really matter since life has such different plans for them. And such different roles at the opposite sides of stage. 

Tsumugi remembers those were nothing but mere roles only at the very moment the light goes off, and all the purposes of his actions created by someone else is now reduced to ashes in the fire he casts with his own hands. The war of glorious Fine against the disobedience of the Five Oddballs, this fairy tale written by Eichi about the heroes’ triumph over monsters now seems to be just a dream Tsumugi has forgotten to wake up from.

And it wouldn’t be too bad for him to bury his existence (reached the peak of usefulness, suddenly higher than he expected) behind the fallen curtains of his second year in high school. But for some reason he is not the only one who still stands there on the empty stage which has already been getting covered by dust.

Natsume approaches him from the opposite corner of the stage. His motions are silent and graceful, and maybe that’s why it’s hard to believe that this is also not a part of some dream. But Natsume’s thin hand is real as it pulls Tsumugi forward forcefully and roughly. So he opens his eyes at the opened doors of his final school year.

And he can’t explain it for himself, but for some reason he almost believes that this time his decisions and actions can change something. Even if it’s going to happen in a small filled with magic world of their unit, which is only starting to bloom.

***

“Shishou, Shishou, please show it to Sora one more time!”, the ringing voice of the first-year who was the last to join their just formed unit can be heard on the way to the studio they’ve booked for today. Tsumugi can’t see the world the way Sora does, neither can he see through the walls, but the boy’s words are shining like warm like rays of the sun, overwhelmed with genuine and pure joy. “Sora has almost remembered everything from the first view, but the ending is a little bit confusing to Sora…”

“Is that So? You really are such a talented Boy.” Tsumugi freezes in front of the slightly opened door at the moment his fingers almost grab the handle. His coming will surely sweep away the peaceful smile Natsume always has on his face as he talks to his beloved student. Tsumugi is always told that he is bad at understanding people or reading the atmosphere, but it’s easy enough for him to learn that Natsume’s mood worsens every time he appears.

If he enters the room right now it will be really out of place and will ruin the cheerful conversation. So Tsumugi decides to wait a little bit, watching through the small space the opened door lefts. This rehearsal is going to be the first one for him because he has wasted too much time on making costumes, so it’s not a bad idea to have a small peek at the movements, right? He doesn’t want to be a burden after all. So he just smiles as he watches Natsume giving Sora an encouraging head pat.

“Thank you, Shishou!” the boy lets out a happy laughter. “Sora is very new to everything, so Sora wants to learn quickly!”

“Yes, I know That, but overworking will only cause you HARM,” Natsume shakes his head with a soft smile. “It is really important to estimate your abilities Correctly, especially in Your Case”

Despite looking hard to approach, Natsume is really good with kids, isn’t he? That speaks a lot how big and kind his own heart is.

“Sora understands that, Shishou, but please, please show it again! Sora really wants to see Shishou dancing one more time!”

“And how am I going to say No to such Glance?” Natsume gives up and returns to the center of the room. His arm rises above his head - a simple yet graceful and refined gesture. And one snap of his fingers is enough for the room to become overwhelmed with music. Or maybe it is Natsume’s magic what makes nothing in the room matter. Nothing but a cheerful rhythm of the song and his own figure of a natural-born idol, so radiant and talented.

No matter how many years passed, Tsumugi still take his eyes away from Natsume’s movements. Now, when the person the mirrors in the studio reflect is not a girl in a light dress but a young man in a training uniform. Now, when there’re no longer two braids of that once long hair, only one for-who-knows-reason remained dances through the air (and it looks like a thread spreading somewhere far far away) when its owner makes a whirl. Now, when once ringing and cheerful voice sounds so much lower it still gives so many goosebumps. Or maybe it all happens because of the smile, this warm and sincere smile of Natsume that shines for the audience that exists in his imagination. But of course there’s no way it wound’t be able to break the ice in their heart. Of course it is simply impossible not to fall under Natsume’s spell.

Tsumugi knows that like no one else does.

It’s still so hard for him, to believe that what he sees now is not some new version of an old dream he knows by heart. But the door he leans on is surely real, he can feel its wooden surface under his fingers. The bundle with stage costumes (he brought them just in case they need another fitting) is also real, not too heavy to carry, but its weight is enough to remind of it presence. Tsumugi is also good enough at realising how dry is his mouth right now and how hard his heart is beating in his own rib cage. But to realise that someone like Natsume exists in the same world as he does, to accept the truth that someone like him (after so many things happened) deserves to exists in the same world as Natsume…

To Tsumugi, it is so much easier to believe that one day he will get to grasp starlight with his fingers than to believe that he might be worthy of this radiance. The radiance that never blinds but always makes an aching tenderness bloom somewhere inside.

He could watch over this shining for whole eternity, but music goes off and loud claps of admiration sweep away the magic, bringing back the reality, faded away for some minutes.

“Shisho is really amazing, HoHo ~” Sora chirps happily and hops up from the floor he was sitting on, unable to keep his amazement still (well, kids of his age are always filled with energy, aren’t they?). He reaches Natsume in another big hop and passes him a towel. “Sora really-really likes how Shishou performs!”

“Well, thank you a Lot, Sora”, Natsume smiles gratefully to his student as he accepts the towel. “Such words are always very nice to Hear.”

“Shishou doesn’t have to say thank you to Sora,” the first-year giggles and something strangely mischievous rings in his pure voice. “After all it is Senpai who liked it even more than Sora!”

Oh no.

Tsumugi swallows, resentful and admired at the same time by an amazing gift Sora has. Now is a good time for him to run for his life but it feels like his feet are glued to the floor so he can’t move at all. And all that is left for him is to giggle at his miserable fate while watching how it takes less than a second for Natsume to stop smiling. Ah, this is happening once again. Tsumugi just wonders how is he able to make everything go wrong while doing absolutely nothing.

“Hello to everyone!” He finally manages to say something as he lots out the door he’s been clinging to for past several minutes. “Today is quite a good day, isn’t it?”

He waves his hand awkwardly and receives a warm greeting from Sora, who jumps happily waving back with both of his hands. While Natsume… 

“A good Day?” He repeats, intentionally stretching out syllables and crossing arms over his chest. “Sounds like a way too pure greeting for such a weirdo who sticks at the door for God knows how long just watching Silently. Such behavior is one of a Creep, Senpai.”

“You have such a bad opinion on me, Natsume-kun,” Tsumugi steps from one foot to another, still not sure about his safety from sudden attack their impulsive leader might decide to attempt. “I just had no intentions of ruining that wonderful conversation you two had and making you waste your time on me.”

“We’d still had to do It, because it was decided that today we have a rehearsal Together,” Natsume snaps with his tongue sceptically, but still seems to be in a rather peaceful mood. His golden eyes narrow only at the moment he notices a package around one of Tsumugi’s arms. “And what is?..”

“Oh, I brought the costumes. Just in case. You told me they are done well, but I had a thought…”

“You do really have too many Thoughts, Senpai.” Tsumugi flinches when he hears Natsume’s shoes clicking against the floor. “Do you really think that I would have ignored any of your Mistakes, or would have allowed us to make a debut in poorly made stage Costumes?”

Tsumugi blinks, unable to understand what is he expected to answer with these eyes staring at him upward.

“You don’t look like this kind of person, Natsume-kun”, he finally admits. “After all, there is a reason why you are our leader and…”

“And you’d better trust me and my words more Then,” the way Natsume interrupts him is impolite for sure, but there’s something more in his voice. Something so strange but Tsumugi can’t recognise what exactly. Just as he can’t understand the reason he remains under such an attentive gaze. The distance between him and Natsume is shorter than an outstretched arm. “There’s something More, Senpai.”

“More? Have I made anything wrong once again?” Tsumugi blinks as he is honestly confused. It’s not hard for him to apologise, it has never been hard, but to him it doesn’t seem like this time he has made anything according to Natsume’s weird reasons to be constantly unpleased with him.

“You are once again staying in the corner like nothing here is about You.”

Tsumugi frowns. Maybe it’s because of the words that have just left Natsume’s lips. Maybe it’s because Natsume firmly comes closer to take the package with stage costumes out of his hands.

“You’re also a member of Switch, like me and Sora. Not just a helping Assistant.”

With such little distance between them even in his barely useful glasses Tsumugi can see glimpse of gold in Natsume’s eyes and little drops of sweat on his perfectly clear skin. And he feels a non-intrusive yet familiar scent of cologne Natsume never shows in public without. And he can hear how Natsume’s velvet voice trembles a little, which demonstrates a light shortage of breath after practice.

“So you’d better step from your unreachable heights down to earth to Us, Senpai”

Tsumugi blinks slowly, a couple of seconds is not enough for him to understand the received information and to remember that these feelings are the true undeniable evidence that everything happening with him is still not in his dreams. And at the moment he finally genuinely believes it, he smiles. 

“If one of us is really trying to reach for another, then it is me who really needs to catch up with you, Natsume-kun,” he says with no doubt in his voice. But the very next moment he lets out an offended yelp because his cheek is pulled mercilessly by Natsume’s thin fingers. “Wha-wha-What is wrong with that I said now?!”

“You’d better go and Change if you really don’t want to waste our Time,” Natsume is already on his way to the opposite corner of the room to place the package with costumes on a chair. “Also you never opening your mouth will be Appreciated.”

“Eeh? This way I won’t be able to perform, you know…”

“This conversation is Over.”

Tsumugi lets out a big sigh and rubs his fingers against the reddened skin. Sora’s giggle takes him by surprise so he turns to the boy, who was watching this whole awkward scene silently but with a big smile in his wide-opened eyes.

“Shishou is really happy to see you today with us, Senpai,” he says with a trustful look, as if what he says is a big secret only Tsumugi is allowed to know. And he honestly wonders how can this pure-hearted child know this for sure.

“I really wish I could understand it as easily as you do, Sora-kun”, Tsumugi complains. But of course he can’t deny that a ringing sincerity of Sora’s voice helps him not to start doubting whether this is the right time and place for him to stay.

After all, despite the greatness of gap that grew between two of them because of the years passed and especially because of the events happened in the previous one, Natsume was the one who granted him with a chance to stand by his side on stage. Thanks to Natsume they can sing the same songs and even bestow the same magic . Tsumugi is still not really good at it, but he has a person he can learn from, a person to look up to. To him, Natsume remains to be a bright star, that guides him to a person he might not be worthy of being anymore. But he wants to keep on trying.

To Tsumugi, it is enough to have this miracle-like chance to prove that trust he was granted with was not a mistake. He is already blessed enough with a little chance to make one old wish come true. But Tsumugi tries not to even think about it too often, and of course not to put it into words. He doesn’t want to ruin everything by scaring off his fate.

But as long as Tsumugi is able to hear the way Natsume smiles on the stage where he leads their unit of magic and happiness, there’s really (almost) nothing he can wish for.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, Enstars fandom, thank you for blessing me with a new hyperfixation that makes me happy for four months already. I am madly in love with this two, I am extremely fond of Switch in general, so in order to express my gratitude I am translating my works. I don't know if they are good enough or not, but I just can't stay silent. These awkward boys deserve so much love... 
> 
> Thank you a lot for reading and I'm sorry for possible mistakes!


End file.
